■ ZBrush Interface General Overview 13Table 1.1: ZBrush MenusMenu Description
Alpha Options to import and manipulate alphas, grayscale images primarily used as brush shapes, stencils, and
texture stamps.
Brush Contains the 3D sculpting and painting tools.
Color Options for selecting colors as well as filling models with color or material.
Document Options for setting document window size as well as exporting images from ZBrush.
Draw Settings that define how the brushes affect surfaces. These include ZIntensity, RGB Intensity, ZAdd, ZSub,
as well as settings that are specific to 2.5D brushes. This menu also contains the Perspective Camera
setting.
Edit Contains the undo and redo buttons.
File Save and load ZProjects. These allow you to save ZTool, texture, material, and other settings in a single file
format.
Layer Options for the creation and management of document layers. These differ from sculpting layers and are
typically only used in canvas modeling and illustration.
Light Create and place lights to illuminate your subject.
Macro Records ZBrush actions as a button for easy repetition.
Marker This menu is for MultiMarkers, a legacy ZBrush function that is mostly obsolete with the advent of
subtools.
Material Surface shaders and material settings. These include both standard materials and MatCap (Material
Capture) materials.
Movie This menu allows you to record videos of your sculpting sessions as well as render rotations of your fin-
ished sculptures. This menu also allows access to the Timeline controls.
Picker Options pertaining to how the brushes deal with the surfaces on which they are used. Flatten is one
sculpting brush that will be affected by the Once Ori and Cont Ori buttons. For the most part, these
options are not used in sculpting.
Preferences Options to set up your ZBrush preferences. Everything from interface colors to memory management is
handled here.
Render Options for rendering your images inside ZBrush. This menu is only used when doing 2.5D illustration.
Stencil A close associate of the Alpha menu. Stencil allows you to manipulate alphas you have converted to sten-
cils to help in painting or sculpting details.
Stroke Options governing the way in which the brush stroke is applied. These options include freehand and spray
strokes. Here you will also find the LazyMouse settings.
Te x tur e Menu for creating, importing, and exporting texture maps with ZBrush. This is also where to save or open
SpotLight files. Will allow you to add textures to SpotLight.
To ol This is the workhorse of the ZBrush interface. In this menu you will find all options that affect the current
active ZTool. Here you will find Subtools, Layers, Deformation, Masking, and Polygroup options as well as
many other useful menus. This is the menu in which you are likely to spend the most time (next to Brush).
The Tool menu allows you to select tools on which to sculpt as well as select the wide variety of 2.5D tools
for canvas modeling and illustration.
Tr ansfor m Contains document navigation options such as Zoom and Pan and buttons to alter the model’s pivot
point as well as sculpting symmetry settings and poly frame view.
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